Joined Up Care in Belper - Health Care Service Review - CLOSED

Belper health services are to move and be provided from a new purpose-built, multi-million pound base in the town following engagement and a decision from health leaders.

NHS Southern Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s governing body has agreed to move services currently provided from Babington Hospital to a new facility to be built in Derwent Street.

Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust (DCHSFT) is commissioned to provide a range of services for patients from the former workhouse in Derby Road, including community therapy services, physiotherapy, podiatry, falls prevention and intermediate care.

But difficulties posed by increasing maintenance needs and limitations of Babington ageing building, and an ongoing review of Belper health services, prompted CCG leaders to consider moving existing services from Babington’s site – including Belper Clinic – to a new development closer to the centre of the town, with the exception that a new model of “bedded care” will be offered.

The decision to make the move, taken at a governing body meeting in June 2018, follows months of engagement by NHS staff, which included talking to people in Belper’s streets, at the town’s farmers’ market, and households receiving information and details about how to get involved being delivered door to door, and made available in public venues across the town.

All feedback received was considered by the CCG, and independently analysed by Healthwatch Derbyshire.

The CCG, which plans and pays for health services, worked with professionals that support patients to develop the plans. These were shared with NHS staff and clinicians, and Belper Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) – which work with GP practices to make sure patients and carers get involved with, and influence their services.

Derbyshire County Council is developing land in Derwent Street to provide 40 new residential care home beds for their service users, and create a new library for Belper.

The CCG and DCHSFT have worked with the authority to explore opportunities for providing health services from the same site. DCHSFT purchased land in Derwent Street from the county council, on the understanding it could be sold back if a decision was made to not move services to the site. The Trust currently rents the Babington site from NHS Property Services, which has owned it since 2013.

DCHSFT successfully bid for almost £6m of Department of Health money to invest in the new building.

Services will continue to be offered from the Babington site until the new Derwent Street facility is ready to house services, unless exceptional circumstances – such as flooding – make this impossible.

Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust will now go though formal processes to build a new health facility on the land it has in Derwent Street, Belper. The CCG will continue to work with health and care partners to complete an overall assessment of the bedded care provision and staffing resources within south Derbyshire, to support the new model of

Once a successful transfer of services to the new Derwent Street building has taken place – at a date to be agreed – Babington Hospital and Belper Clinic would no longer be used as a healthcare facility by the CCG.